


Introduction to Organic Chemistry

by Pookaseraph



Series: CMUniverse [8]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Carnegie Mellon, Dating, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Pittsburgh, Protective Older Brothers, The Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 09:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pookaseraph/pseuds/Pookaseraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Impulse control, what's that? Tony takes Anya out on a date after an attempted The Talk with Erik... Tony's sure there's a plan to keep his balls intact somewhere in there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Introduction to Organic Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize, the title is revolting.

Tony thought he was being _very_ restrained, waiting until almost seven in the morning, as he did, to go and tap incessantly on Charles' door. It was just a soft sort of tap, nail against wood, and eventually Charles would either growl at him to go away or would growl at him to come in. This was one of their time honored rules. What he wasn't expecting was a padding sort of sound and the door to open up and reveal a bed-rumpled, topless, Erik Lehnsherr. Tony gaped.

Charles was a big old hypocrite about not sleeping with people right off! Apparently Lehnsherrs were like catnip to Stark-Xaviers. You just wanted to roll around in them and... he shook his head, and realized he probably looked a bit like a lost puppy. "Is Charles awake?"

Erik checked over his shoulder and turned back around, face all fondness and I Totally Got Laid (TM). "No." He took a deep breath. "Are you continuing to have your existential crisis of monogamy?"

"Charles told you about that?" Not that he was overly surprised, he had interrupted Erik getting laid for that, so he supposed he'd earned having his personal business be Erik's personal business.

Erik nodded, silently.

"Yes. I'm having a crisis, I need my BFF and his wisdom." He crossed his arms over his chest, daring Erik to deny him.

Erik ducked back into the room, and Tony watched, leaving the door propped open, as Erik went over and sat on the bed, causing it to dip lightly. It was obvious that Charles was similarly unclothed - a sight not unfamiliar to Tony, but unusual for Charles in the light of day - Erik placed a kiss on Charles' neck and said something, low enough for Tony to not be able to hear, and Charles stretched and made a sort of whining noise that Tony usually interpreted as 'need more sleep'. Apparently Erik had somehow become fluent in Charles groans, however, because he got back up and came back to the door.

"Can you hit snooze on your crisis?"

Tony pouted. Erik sighed.

"Wait here." And then Erik shut the door in his face.

Tony pouted more. He heard more fumbling around, a bit more talking, and then Erik returned ten minutes or so later, now with a shirt, and shoes, and his breath smelling of hastily used mouth wash.

"You'll have to have your existential monogamy crisis with me."

"You're not Charles."

"No, but I do have four younger siblings."

Four younger siblings... one of which Tony kinda wanted to have respectful and timely sex with. What could possibly go wrong? Actually... this was a brilliant plan! Bribery was good on brothers, right? He could do this. "Want to hit the omelet bar? My treat."

Erik looked over his shoulder again and he looked for all the world like he wanted nothing more than to say fuck it and curl up next to Charles again. Maybe he should have weighed the brilliance of Erik-bribery against the brilliance of stealing him away from warm morning-snuggley Charles. Since Tony had already gotten him out of bed, at this point it was probably a toss up. Maybe he could get Erik back in time to continue to get snuggled, win-win. Erik shrugged, and the two of them headed over towards campus.

"I met this girl. Who is... brilliant, and I like her a lot." He gave himself a mental fist pump for his brilliant start to the tale.

"I got that. Charles seemed to imply that monogamy is a novel concept for you."

Ouch! Accidentally back stabbed by his BFF. "I will have you know I am always very respectful, and serially monogamous. The unique element is wanting to keep being monogamous after the fact."

"So you slept with her, and now you want to sleep with her again?"

Danger, Will Robinson! "No. I did not sleep with her, because she is... very awesome, and... deserving of my utmost respect. Did I mention I like her?"

"I got that part." Erik was growling again, he did not sound like a happy Erik. Charles was not pulling his weight in Project Keep Tony's Head On His Shoulders!

The wisdom of complete candor warred with the wisdom of complete candor _with the older brother of the girl he wanted to make out with_. "This is a new experience for me! I want to... do relationship things with her. I'm finding myself caring what Charles thinks about her!"

Erik didn't say anything for a moment. "Does Charles not usually care for your girlfriends?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't usually spend enough time with one person for him to bother. I did date this one girl for four months because..." That was a completely and totally inappropriate thing to tell to Big Brother Lehnsherr. "Because of reasons. But she never even _met_ Charles."

Erik had obviously made a hypothesis on what Tony's 'reasons' were - probably the correct one - and was now rolling his eyes. "I don't really see the problem."

They made their way across the campus and into one of the dining halls - one of the nicer ones, not that crappy one in the UC that had tray table eggs and self-serve Belgian waffles - and settled in to the line. "See, this is why I need Charles."

Charles understood right away how momentous and terrifying this was, Tony didn't need to express things like 'this is terrifying' or 'oh god, monogamy' because Charles had been there for nineteen years. Erik looked unimpressed. "You'll have to do this without your mind reader, sorry, Tony."

Tony crossed his arms and looked at Erik and then looked down at the breakfast bar where there were all sorts of veggies and meat and other omelet fixings on display. He ordered a bacon, mushroom, and swiss omelet. Erik got some vegetarian thing. "It's just... new, alright? She makes me want to treat her right. Not that I haven't treated other girls right, it's a matter of expectations and what one hopes to get out of a relationship... if everyone agrees to a completely consensual short term relationship I really don't see the harm!" This was the worst conversational idea _ever_. "I'm not really used to this sort of... thing."

Erik glowered at the omelet bar for a moment while their breakfasts were being put together and then he turned back to Tony. "I've got it." He watched Erik run his hands together, nervously. "I know how that feels."

Oh... right. That was about when Tony remembered that he wasn't just talking to the older brother of the girl he was having squishy feelings for, he was also having breakfast with _the guy who spent the night in his best friend's room topless_. "Do you need The Talk? I could put together a talk."

"Are you even old enough to give me The Talk?"

"I am almost exactly old enough, by sixteen and a half hours."

Erik looked over at him, face confused. "I thought you weren't actually related. Damn that's a long labor."

"Charles and I aren't _actually_ related, but it's an unspoken agreement between us that we don't hypothesize whether or not our parents were part of some bizarre Bacchanalian orgy nine months prior or not. We just consider ourselves lucky that I look like Howard and he looks like Brian." Despite the fact that talking about his parents - or Charles' dad - was generally completely off limits to Tony's sanity, something had sort of broken open yesterday and he could at least touch the edges of it without wincing. "Dad and uncle Brian knew each other since before college, and _their_ dads were on the Manhattan Project together... If we'd been appropriately gendered and oriented I'm pretty certain Charles and I were going to get married in some sort of bizarre combination of ancient scientist houses via arranged marriage or something." Tony shrugged, looking over to find Erik just... looking at him with a weird expression that Tony couldn't read. "So yes, I'm old enough to give The Talk."

He'd never really given one before... Charles always seemed to have it figured out when he started relationships, but this was different, this one screamed for Tony to step up and actually take part in Charles' little fall, for whatever reason.

"I'll go easy on you, though," he said finally.

Erik smiled, then. "I'll considered myself chastised. I wouldn't let you off nearly as easy, just so you know."

Tony's eyes went wide.

"I just mean you need to work on your Talk."

"What would you say, then?" Tony asked, because he was morbidly curious and apparently a bit masochistic.

They picked up their omelets and some coffee, Tony paid, and they made their way into the mostly empty dining hall itself. Breakfast was actually fairly serviceable, and Tony picked at the food carefully.

"Well..." Erik frowned. "I've actually never given one of these before."

Tony felt momentarily giddy at the fact that Anya had apparently never been with someone seriously enough to merit a big-brotherly visit, but then he realized that Erik was more than likely to go overboard on the whole thing just because of that. Anya certainly hadn't seemed the type to just fall in with anyone but the confirmation was a bit heady. "Well." Tony coughed and took a sip of coffee. "Let's start with the easy stuff! Please don't break Charles' heart."

"I think that goes without saying," Erik grumbled at him, but Tony felt warm and happy on Charles' behalf. "Saying 'treat her right' is a good one, right?"

"Definitely," Tony answered. "Be there for him when I can't be."

"When you're trying to make time with your very respectable girlfriend," Erik corrected him.

Tony ducked his head. "You were already doing a good job of that."

He took another bite of omelet, chewing slowly, and then took a long sip of coffee to wash it down.

"Don't get her pregnant."

Tony inhaled his coffee, started to cough, unable to breathe, and oh god his lungs and his nose were on fire, he was going to die of scalding hot coffee to the lungs. When Tony didn't recover quickly, Erik actually came around and gave him an impressive whack on the back which seemed to dislodge the worst of the coffee, his nose still smelled of coffee and creamer, however. "Oww..."

"Sorry, it just seemed appropriate, right?"

It took him a few more deep breaths to get the air worked back into his lungs. "A gentleman wears condoms... and I will do my absolute very best to not get your sister pregnant, Erik."

Erik gave him a balls-withering glower.

"Oh my god, what if she wants kids?!"

Erik arched an eyebrow at him. "My sister?"

"Yes! NO! My... monogamy person!" He hid behind his omelet after that, cutting off a generous bite and shoving it into his mouth. Hopefully that would keep Erik from saying anything else brain breaking and mentally traumatizing.

"I think that's something you need to talk to her about, not me, and certainly not before you're worked out whatever... issues you're having about monogamy."

He frowned. "The issue is not the monogamy... the issue is everything _else_. The monogamy repercussions! She has a scary older brother." Scary and going to kill him. "This is why I need your advice!"

Erik rolled his eyes again and picked at his omelet. "Well... use your best judgement, I guess. What are you going to make me do to prove my l--- affection for Charles."

Erik had just almost said the L word! Erik looked tentative, however, so Tony wasn't going to mock him terribly. He could mock Erik terribly after Tony had secured the future safety of his balls. Tony saw here his opportunity to be magnanimous and lay the groundwork for future instances of his balls not getting crushed. "Well... nothing _too_ onerous. It's not your fault my baby brother is adorable and has blue eyes that make you want to cuddle him."

The grin that spread across Erik's face was rather incredible. Charles was a lucky guy, actually, and Tony - for all he was experiencing a bit of jealousy and panic - couldn't help but be thrilled.

"So! I'll want to get to know you better. How better can I be assured that you have Charles' best interests at heart?"

"You just want to blackmail me into doing the more complicated programming on your robots." Erik didn't seem to mind, but he did have an additional ulterior motive; if Charles and Erik's relationship was on solid ground, and Erik liked him, it was entirely possible he wouldn't be killed when the shit hit the fan.

Or Erik might murder him for befriending him on semi-false pretenses... but what was life without living a little dangerously? "A little of column A, a little of column B. Can you really resist this level of unfettered access to someone who has known Charles since he was a baby?"

Erik snorted. "No. I suppose I can't, even if he's annoying and dragged me out of bed at seven in the morning."

"I own baby pictures," Tony said, very amused. "And summer home at Martha's Vineyard pictures..."

Erik looked far more interested in that proposition. "Fine, consider me bribed."

Tony grinned at him. Oh this was going to be easy! Unfortunately if Erik was going to acquire access to naked Charles anyway that would make bribery via bathing suit photos harder. Clearly he and Charles needed to have a talk about this. Apparently his happiness was now reliant on Charles putting out just enough but not too much.

"Are you done needing a big brother?" Tony took a deep breath and nodded. "Actually... can I borrow your phone?"

Tony frowned, Erik must have left his at Charles' or something. Actually he didn't know if Erik had a phone. Still, he pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and handed it over. Erik keyed in a number and dialed.

Tony heard the muffled 'hello' from the other end a few moments later.

"Liebling, hey."

He could hear the general earful that Erik got after that, not a yell, exactly, but a stern talking to.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I had a lot of work to do on campus." Tony frowned at Erik. "I stayed over at a friend's dorm on campus." A pause. "Yes, I have friends. Did anything explode while I was gone?"

Tony heard a string of unintelligible chatter from the other end, presumably a list of things that exploded, or an assurance that things remained unexploded. Erik nodded.

"Well, I'm going to pass on services today, I have a lot to do today."

Like Tony's BFF...

"Alright, I'll see you after lunch, Liebling." Erik hung up.

"Liebling?"

"... Darling, basically." Erik shrugged. "Anya." Erik handed his phone back over.

"You're not... out at home, or you just don't want your baby sister knowing your business?"

"Both," Erik said, voice hard. "And you'll keep it that way."

Tony raised his hands up in surrender, he wasn't going to pick that fight, that was between Erik and Charles as far as he was concerned.

"If you don't mind, I would like to get back to Charles."

"Right! Cuddle him a great deal."

Erik stood and headed up out of the door. Tony stared down at his phone. Impulse control, what was that? He pressed redial.

"Erik! We are perfectly capable of not burning the house down for ten hours!" Oh that was most definitely Anya.

"Anya... hey, it's Tony."

Tony was fairly certain he hadn't imagined the delighted squeak at the other end of the phone, and he grinned. He heard the sound of her clearing her throat, and he could almost imagine her fixing her hair or something equally unnecessary for a phone conversation. He was glad he wasn't the only one who was ridiculously un-suave right now. "Hey."

"I had a good time yesterday." He took a deep breath. "I want to see you again."

He heard a muffled thump on the other end of the line. "I... um... tomorrow? I can't see you much next week because of holidays."

"Right, Rosh Hashanah... and sure, we can go to the Waterfront, maybe, have dinner?"

"Lunch," Anya answered. "I can't miss dinner again so soon."

Right, apparently Anya was equally interested in the clandestine for the moment. "So I take it it was a good idea not to mention to your brother at breakfast that we went out."

She answered with a coughing sputter, and then a deep breath. "Yeah... I mean... I like you, but..."

"Understood." He was actually a bit sad, to be honest, but he could handle that, perhaps after another month or two he could have Erik in the palm of his hand, well sexed and pliant in the face of Charles' adorableness and Tony's fundamental integration into Charles' life. "I'll pick you up down on Murray at eleven?"

Tony was never one for waiting, but he did manage it, rolling down the street just before eleven, stopping at the foot of one of the many winding roads that made up Squirrel Hill. Anya hopped in - wearing neatly fitted jeans and a modest shirt. She grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss and the two of them sat there like that for far too long before a honk from an irritated driver had Tony pulling away and Anya buckling herself in.

It didn't take long, barely ten minutes, to get down to the Waterfront and then they were out walking around the various stores, Anya dragging him in to each one and window shopping vigorously. Tony normally would have been bored out of his mind, but watching Anya grin at the various clothes and jewelry she obviously wanted was... nice, and it came intercut with tiny little Lehnsherr family details that he found himself squirreling away, wanting to know as much about her as possible. He found himself making mental notes of what she liked - and didn't like - and tried to decide if it would be too forward to buy her something.

In the end, he ended up buying her Hunger Games - which was apparently a trilogy, not a single novel - and then making out in the back of the car, so as far as Tony was concerned this was a major win.

They ended up topless, legs intertwined, before Tony reminded himself he was trying to be restrained. He groaned and kissed her firmly on the neck. "You have clearly been put on this Earth to tempt me."

She grinned at him, slightly bashful. "You like it."

"I do!" He admitted, instantly. "But... you're making it very hard to be good."

"Then don't," she said, too easily, attacking his neck with a long swipe of tongue.

Only the very real potential threat of castration and death stopped him from ignoring the little voice in the back of his mind that told him to calm down and back off. He did, barely, but not before peppering kisses down her chest. "I'd like to have this conversation with clothing on."

She stole his shirt and pulled it over her own head, leaving him to his shirtlessness, and he sighed, but laughed, before sitting up and pulling her into a one armed hug.

"Well?" She looked... steeled for something unpleasant.

He kissed her forehead. "I wanted to make a point about liking you with your clothes on... and my clothes on."

"But not my clothes off?"

"No! I like that too..." This conversation wasn't going right at all. "Anya... I... I _like_ you, and you're cute as hell, and under most normal circumstances I probably would have already taken advantage---" Really wasn't going right. "I want to have a relationship."

Actually, that was surprisingly easy... he took a deep breath. Anya frowned.

"Why are you frowning? Are you trying to use me for sex?" Wow... that would have been a hilarious and unfortunate reversal of his usual circumstance.

"No... I just..." Anya was tugging at the hem of his shirt and Tony scooted as close as he could, kissing her shoulder and then her neck. "How am I supposed to compete?"

"With... who?" It was his turn to frown. "Because, I'll admit, you sort of have to compete with Charles, because he's my best friend, and always will be, we're like brothers, and, you know, your brother, but I'm friends with him because Charles is...... friends with him, and so he doesn't kill me when he finds out we're dating, but I like to think of that not as competition so much as competing in entirely different categories for my attention."

"With college girls."

"College girls are boring." He frowned, that made him sound like a creepy guy who only went after high school girls because they weren't capable of forming actual on-age attachments, which really wasn't fair because Anya was only three years younger than him, damn it. "I mean... I like... _you_. Anya Lehnsherr. And if you throw yourself at me again I'm not going to resist and be noble about this, but... you're not competing with anyone else."

"Oh." She blushed. "Good, because I was sort of nervous."

"Because you haven't done this before... and because your brother is a scary guy who is going to murder me and bury me in the back yard."

"Both." She gave a nervous sort of giggle. "Is that a problem?"

"I'm working on the brother issue, and... the other issue is definitely... neither an issue nor a creepy fetishistic perk."

"What?"

"Nevermind." He gave her a tug, and she came over to straddle him, slightly hyperextending his knees but looking adorable like that. "Are you alright?"

She nodded.

"Consider me yours for the taking."

She leaned in and pecked him on the corner of the mouth, smiled, and then dragged him down for more kissing. Tony was fairly certain he left a hickey in an unfortunately visible crook of Anya's neck, but he really was long passed caring by that point.


End file.
